So I've been working on my rough drafts and I think they're getting better thanks to all of you!

I'm still having trouble tying in why [xxx] law school will help me / why I need to go to law school so if you could focus on that last paragraph I would be very grateful.

If you want to swap, feel free to PM me as well.Thanks!

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Growing up as a child, I have always had this endless drive for success. I did not just build Lego sets, I spent countless hours getting the details right on each of my projects. I made sure spent time exploring different hobbies, looking for something I would like. The night I visited my uncle and aunt’s house in 5th grade changed everything for me.

We hardly made the hour long visit to the otherside of town but when we did, my parents were inclined to check out the outlet malls. I was no stranger to my extended family, but I wasn’t comfortable enough to leave my parents yet. My uncle started calming me down by pointing to a glowing screen on the other side of the room - a computer. I sat down at the desk and stared. I had no idea what was going on. Then, a card game flashes on the screen. “Wow” was the first word that sputtered out of my mouth, “what else do you have?” I was sold.

I spent the rest of the afternoon messing around with different settings, playing different games. Even printing my first picture I drew in Paint. The drive back home was tough, I needed to spend more time exploring the insides of the computer. Eventually, I was able to persuade my parents to cave in and buy one for our own home. Little did they know, that computer would be in pieces the very next day. I pulled it apart and put it back together in a couple of hours. It wasn’t until I first heard about the internet that things started changing for the better.

As a first generation Polish child, I was not accustomed to what seemed to be the standard in American homes: internet, cable TV, a dishwasher. Anything I wanted to do, I needed to figure out on my own. Not because my parents were opposed, they just didn’t understand. I was the liaison between my parents and my outside social world. My parents jokingly claim I’m the reason they never learned to speak English, I never gave them the opportunity to do so.

I found ways of connecting to the internet for free, using either Walmart Blue Light CD’s or persuading the AOL Customer Support staff to extend my free trials knowing my parents would never release their credit card information to an unknown service and even as a last resort, tinkering with files to remove the advertising from Juno’s free service.

By the end of the 8th grade, I started my first online business. My father was the landlord for a substandard apartment complex in the outskirts of the city. As a forgiving man, he would occasionally take items in place of rent if the tenant needed some extra time. Eventually, my dad was running out of things to do with these items. That was when I opened up my first eBay store. My dad would bring home items and I would evaluate them, clean them if needed and list them on eBay’s website. Eventually, Sunday mornings were dedicated to going over what I could sell and for how much. I ended up selling everything else and more, until I happened to graze over a website development advertisement. I managed to create a constant flow of money for myself. I would charge $50 logos, $100 for websites. My mom was getting nervous I was making this much money as a kid. Even in today’s standards $50 is a solid day’s work. Every time she asked me about it, I glowed with enthusiasm, “awesome isn’t it?”

High school came and went just like every other teenage problem. Instead of taking out my problems on my friends and family, I ventured into my own, internet world. I started skating in my free time to keep my mind off of things like the ACT and college. During this time I saw the potential in an online skating community in which skaters were able to upload and share their own videos. The website did well enough that I had Best Buy advertisements on the front page. This drive for a solid business model kept growing inside of me. I started another website a couple months later that revolved around the Subaru community, based on my dad’s car that he let me drive. Granted, it was just a small purple SUV but that small purple SUV helped build the framework for a community of like-minded car enthusiasts in the Chicago area. I helped foster the community by reaching out to other individuals who were interested in cars, found the right programmers and designers and created a marketing task force. We would go out to local car meetings, pass out flyers and eventually cultivated a group of people with the same similar interests.

I flourished as an individual after being accepted to the University of Illinois. Without the careful watch of my parents, I was capable of exploring my horizons few and far between, experiencing what it felt like to join a fraternity, clubs, organizations; I made sure I got a taste of everything. My sophomore year, my fraternity was in trouble. I knew something needed to be done, so I created a website in order to connect to the long-lost alumni we needed to keep our house alive. I set up cold calling teams and routed everyone to the website where I received over 1,000 comments dating back to alumni from the 1930’s. I still keep in touch with many of those alumni today.

Over the years, I’ve learned to take advantage of the resources around me. I understand the potential of the internet and I only use it as a tool to my disposal. I stay ahead of the curve and I know this will be one of the most important skills I have further down the road in my career. As a lawyer, the possibilities are limitless. From starting a legal help website or creating a website that’ll take advantage of my legal degree, I will be able to take what’s given to me and cultivate a market for myself. With a Juris Doctorate I will combine both sets of skills with my natural resourcefulness and better serve my clients in the future. The resources offered to me by [XXX] University will help me curate those skills and build upon that success I’ve been striving for since I was a child.

i personally liked your essay, although i think there could be a very explicit unifier sentence in the beginning. i think qualities like curiosity, drive, dedication really come across but i would strike the legos, maybe even the computer part, and start w/ teh internet b/c that's where you actually start doing stuff.

This is a great topic and I agree with the above posters that you paint a nice picture. BUT, it's very long for perhaps anything but a Berkeley essay. Double spaced it goes onto a 4th page so you need to find some stuff to combine and streamline. I agree that the legos can go, and that you should reduce the time you spend on all but one of your web-related achievements to save space. Either that or as mmbt said, cut out most of your introductory stuff and get to the achievements right away. Try a couple versions of cutting and see what feels most powerful.

Overall it seems a little disjointed in the middle through the end. You need to try to connect the paragraphs more. You also have verb tense issues, especially in the beginning. The content was pretty good, but the lack of flow at times hurt readability. Your conclusion could be improved as well. (Your ideas about how you want to apply your web programming ability with your JD seem a little silly. If you want biglaw or just some firm job, you will most likely not be doing webdesign. If you want to hang up your own shingle right after law school--that in itself is going to be difficult to do.)

Edits are in brackets:

Anonymous User wrote:Growing up as a child, I have always had this endless drive for success. I did not just build Lego sets, I spent countless hours getting the details right on each of my projects. I made sure [I] spent time exploring different hobbies, looking for something I would like. The night I visited my uncle and aunt’s house in 5th grade changed everything for me.

[My family] hardly made the hour long visit to the [other side] of town but when we did, my parents were inclined to check out the outlet malls. I was no stranger to my extended family, but I wasn’t comfortable enough to leave my parents yet. [Reword/redo this previous sentence to be more in narrative for.] My uncle [calmed] me down by pointing to a glowing screen on the other side of the room [use an em-dash, not a hyphen] a computer. I sat down at the desk and stared. I had no idea what was going on. Then, a card game [flashed] on the screen. “Wow” was the first word that sputtered out of my mouth, [before then asking,] “[W]hat else do you have?” [Even before he answered] I was sold.

I spent the rest of the afternoon messing around with different settings [and] playing different games. [I] [e]ven print[ed] my first picture I drew in Paint. The drive back home was tough, I needed to spend more time exploring the insides of the computer. Eventually, I was able to persuade my parents to cave in and buy one for our own home. Little did they know, that computer would be in pieces the very next day. I pulled it apart and put it back together in a couple of hours. It wasn’t until I first heard about the internet that things started changing for the better.

As a first generation Polish child, I was not accustomed to what seemed to be the standard in American homes: internet, cable TV, a dishwasher. Anything I wanted to do, I needed to figure out on my own. Not because my parents were opposed, they just didn’t understand. I was the liaison between my parents and my outside social world. My parents jokingly claim I’m the reason they never learned to speak English, I never gave them the opportunity to do so.

I found ways of connecting to the internet for free, using either Walmart Blue Light CD’s or persuading the AOL Customer Support staff to extend my free trials [(]knowing my parents would never release their credit card information to an unknown service[),] and even[,] as a last resort, tinkering with files to remove the advertising from Juno’s free service.

By the end of the 8th grade, I started my first online business. My father was the landlord for a substandard apartment complex in the outskirts of the city. As a forgiving man, he would occasionally take items in place of rent if the tenant needed some extra time. Eventually, my dad was running out of things to do with these items. That was when I opened up my first eBay store. My dad would bring home items[,] and I would evaluate them, clean them if needed[,] and list them on eBay’s website. Eventually, Sunday mornings were dedicated to going over what I could sell and for how much. I ended up selling everything else and more [What does "more" mean?--consider rephrasing this part of the sentence.], [The idea for my next venture occurred when I] happened to graze over a website development advertisement. I managed to create a constant flow of money for myself. I would charge $50 logos, $100 for websites. My mom was getting nervous I was making this much money as a kid. Even in today’s standards $50 is a solid day’s work. Every time she asked me about it, I glowed with enthusiasm, “awesome isn’t it?”

High school came and went just like every other teenage problem. Instead of taking out my problems on my friends and family, I ventured into my own, internet world. I started skating in my free time to keep my mind off of things like the ACT and college. During this time I saw the potential in an online skating community in which skaters were able to upload and share their own videos. The website [I started] did well enough that I had Best Buy advertisements on the front page. This drive for a solid business model kept growing inside of me. [This previous sentence seems unnecessary; consider deleting.] I started another website a couple months later that revolved around the Subaru community, based on my dad’s car that he let me drive. Granted, it was just a small purple SUV but that small purple SUV helped build the framework for a community of like-minded car enthusiasts in the Chicago area. I helped foster the community by reaching out to other individuals who were interested in cars, found the right programmers and designers and created a marketing task force. We would go out to local car meetings, pass out flyers and eventually cultivated a group of people with the same similar interests.

I flourished as an individual after being accepted to the University of Illinois. Without the careful watch of my parents, I was capable of exploring my horizons few and far between, experiencing what it felt like to join a fraternity, clubs, organizations; I made sure I got a taste of everything. My sophomore year, my fraternity was in trouble. I knew something needed to be done, so I created a website in order to connect to the long-lost alumni we needed to keep our house alive. I set up cold[-]calling teams and routed everyone to the website where I received over 1,000 comments dating back to alumni from the 1930’s. I still keep in touch with many of those alumni today.

Over the years, I’ve learned to take advantage of the resources around me. I understand the potential of the internet and I only use it as a tool to my disposal. I stay ahead of the curve[,] and I know this will be one of the most important skills I have further down the road in my career. As a lawyer, the possibilities are limitless. From starting a legal help website or creating a website that [will] take advantage of my legal degree, I will be able to take what’s given to me and cultivate a market for myself. With a Juris Doctorate I will combine both sets of skills with my natural resourcefulness and better serve my clients in the future. The resources offered to me by [XXX] University will help me curate those skills and build upon that success I’ve been striving for since I was a child.